Dear Wallace F. Ackley Co.,

I have emerged clean and new, washed of sin as much as of sweat, from a luxuriously warm shower with a brand new shower head. When we wrote you but less than 24 hours past, quietly bemoaning that we should have to hold the shower head in our hand for the foreseeable future (its holder having broke), we but little thought you would respond so soon.

But look! You do care. A kind and competent factotum appeared at our door, and saw to all our issues. Did we write only of a broken shower head? Yes. Did he nonetheless install new blinds in an upstairs window and replace a faulty outlet uncomplainingly? Yes, he did. With decent Midwestern reserve and a can-do attitude he just said, “Yes, I think I have an outlet in my car. I’ll go check, and if I need to get any supplies I’ll be back in 15 minutes.” And, like a faithful lover, he kept his promise.

You see, I have been ill-used before–been faced with both the blind bureaucracy of a company which advertises itself on trucks driving up and down the campus district and the dumb incompetency of patchwork half-fixes from a would-be slumlord. I have even been asked by a potential landlord to sign away my right to seek legal counsel! Having passed through these wrongs, I am amply rewarded by my current repose in your responsive and responsible arms, O Wallace F. Ackley Co.

Did you once raise my rent by $10? This much must be admitted to be true. But certainly, we all have faults, and the best of couples know not how to not fight, but how to squabble and still love. And in my turn, I’m certain sometime somewhere I’ve scratched some paint on the walls (though I write so in a completely facetious matter and as part of a comedic online document, which I assert here and now may not be used in legal proceedings against me or in decisions to withhold my deposit–on second thought I have treated the house with scrupulous care and it is, in point of fact, in better condition now than it was when entering my hands).

My point is, I’m happy to pay the extra $10, it was probably appropriate given local neighborhood rental rates, and for such a landlord/lady/company of unknown size as you, I would do anything (except pay a raise of my rent of $100 a month–a bitch ain’t made of money).

Thank you for my blinds, my outlet, and my shower head — you are the best rental agency a girl could ever hope for.

Love,

M